Why won’t Hitler conspiracies die?
Eighty years ago, as Red Army shells rained down over Adolf Hitler’s Reich Chancellery garden, a group of his remaining…
My battle to avoid boredom
Four days ago I was so bored that I considered starting a terrorist groupuscule. I had no demands, no ideology,…
Lily Parr and the creepiness of AI resurrection
I’m not sure it’s possible to make a horror movie more sinister than the chirpy four-minute film on YouTube purporting…
Northern Europe doesn’t get salads: Claro reviewed
Claro is at 12 Waterloo Place, St James’s, and, when I tried to find out what it used to be…
How Rome copes with the Conclave
Ordinary Romans, famous for their cheerful working-class familiarity, loved Pope Francis for his common touch. For the first time in…
The hidden violence behind the trans ruling
It is ten months since the then merely aspirant education secretary Bridget Phillipson addressed the important issue of where transgender…
The extraordinary scale of the crisis facing the next pope
At 9.47 a.m. on Easter Monday we heard the words ‘con profondo dolore’ from a cardinal standing in the chapel…
Pope Francis had his priorities right
After he emerged from the Gemelli hospital in Rome last month, Pope Francis put out a reflection on ‘hospital’. Some…
What would Livy have made of Trump’s treatment of Harvard?
It is not surprising that Donald Trump holds the law in contempt. That is what happens when you have a…
Poulenc’s Stabat Mater – sacred, fervent and always on the verge of breaking into giggles
It’s funny what you see at orchestral concerts. See, that is, not just hear. If you weren’t in the hall…
Portrait of the week: Pope dies, EU cheese banned and trans women aren’t women
Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, no longer believes that a trans woman is a woman, his official spokesman…
Middle-class parents are creating a new breed of brat
I recently reconnected with an old friend; I went to his house and met his children for the first time.…
My Marco Pierre White obsession
Pierre White, Marco. Chef. Michelin stars: five (all handed back). Wives: three (all handed back). Restaurants owned: number unclear. Hours…
The law that is choking civil society
If one were to ask for a quintessential display of the British character it would be hard to better the…
Winning little narrative adventure: South of Midnight reviewed
Grade: A– For this winning little narrative adventure we are in the South – all gris-gris gumbo yaya, decaying mansions…
Dear Mary: Must I take my mother-in-law’s hideous cast-offs?
Q. My soon-to-be mother-in-law has started off-loading large amounts of her expensive but hideous cast-off clothes on to me. I…
Conservatives all over the Anglosphere are paying the price for Trump
It is the great good fortune of Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to be united by a common language,…
Men are allowed to fail, too
The weather in Bath has been preposterously good, with the Royal Crescent glowing in a soft, lemony light. I’m here…
Which pope has served the longest?
Papal reign The mostly elderly runners and riders to be the next pope are unlikely to challenge the record for…
The secret behind Reform’s local election campaign
It is an irony of Brexit that, since we left the EU, British politics has become more European. The local…
When will the BBC ever learn?
They say that death and taxes are the only certain things in this life. I would add BBC bias into…
After Francis, who?
After Francis, what, or rather, who? The coverage so far, rightly admiring of the Pope’s unvarnished, rather un-papal Christianity, has…
The day the King came to Ravenna
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna ‘Fortune’s a right whore: If she give aught, she deals it in small parcels,/ That she may…
Long live the long lunch!
I keep on my bedside table, where others might place religious texts, Keith Waterhouse’s seminal The Theory and Practice of…
